Sales Funnels are the new Sales Trainers. Or rather, they should be. They are the new Sales Trainers that are supposed to take the learnings from the internet marketing masters and put them in a format that anyone can understand and implement in their own campaigns. Fair warning: this article is very long. Just like with all things, though, this will only get longer as you go through it.

First, let me say what the sales funnel is. In simple terms, sales funnels are a set of stages a prospect goes through before they become a buyer. In online business terms, they are a process that starts with free traffic that can be converted into leads. Once those leads are qualified, they can be converted into

potential customers (purchases).

So what are these stages? Well, the basic model is usually a 3-step process: Free - Prospecting - Sales. It's really just a fancy way of saying that you send your prospects to a sales page so that you can capture their names and email addresses. From there, you follow up with offers and follow-ups - but first, you send them to test their free offers or free download opportunities so that you can follow up with them later to make sure they actually act on your offers. Finally, you send them to a sales funnel to close the loop and close a sale.

But what if you take the opposite approach? What if you go through the sales funnel, send prospects to an offer page, and then encourage them to take action after the offer has been received? That's exactly what I'm doing with my own online businesses and it's working great for me. I've used it successfully for years and am very happy with the results. But in order to take it further, you need to identify the "trigger" offers that will motivate you enough to start the sales funnel and follow up with interested prospects after that. That's where the next 2 steps in this article come in.

The second step in this sales funnel strategy is simple but can take a lot of practice to perfect. It's getting your marketing efforts in place before you send anyone to a sales page. This includes putting together a strong email marketing campaign and crafting an effective squeeze page that entices potential customers to give you their name and email address in exchange for valuable information.

These two strategies are the heart and soul of any sales funnel strategy. While social media can provide some valuable traffic in and of itself, it's typically not sufficient to sustain long-term success with a marketing campaign. Sales Funnels will also work best when they're incorporated with a full service, Internet marketing company. That way you can get the most out of all your efforts, grow your business faster, and develop stronger, more consistent relationships with your clients and prospects.